Re: Indian Pacific hits freight train - Who's the Responsible Investigating body?

[petan@NOSPAMion.com.au (PETer and susAN)]

On Fri, 27 Aug 1999 21:37:44 +1000, David Langley <del@ancc.com.au> wrote:

>Maurie Daly wrote:
>
>> >Having an insulator between the wheel and the rail is usually fatal for any
>> >form of track circuit.
>>
>> If however , the Rail Authority has done none of these, then they are
>> expecting us to beleive that sanding from a steam loco can make the track ccts
>> fail in a dangerous mode , but not sand from diesels or electrics.
>> Hardly beleivable one would think.
>> Prior to the 3801 incident had the SRA , or indeed any other Railway in this
>> country issued warnings about sanding in track circuited terrain?
>
>The problems of Cowan Bank are surely unique and warrant their own rules, the
>rules re sanding would be quite OK anywhere else. The poms of course have their
>annual problem in autumn - leaf fall season and have gone to great lengths and
>huge expenditure to overcome the problem of trains unable to brake to a stand at
>stations or red signals, or to lift the load once stopped. The problems of rail
>insulation are not new, just caused by different situations.
>
>A question now for the NSW people, what happened in the days of the plodding
>standard goods loco climbing Cowan Bank and dropping all their sand etc. Electric
>signals with track circuits existed then so did they have any problems way back
>then.
>
>David.
>

See the answer in my post in the other "Indian Pacific hits freight train" thread on this newsgroup.
I quoted from the RTM's AD60 book.

Cheers
Peter Cokley